*** Honors Candidate ***
*** Academic Honors Candidate ***

Career: Gehring has 21 career starts to rank
third among returning offensive players and fifth overall. He has
caught 25 passes for 311 yards and three touchdowns in 36 games as
an Eagle.

2013: Listed as a starter at tight end on the
preseason depth chart.

2012: Named to the Big Sky Conference
All-Academic team. Started nine of EWU’s 14 games, and played
in all 14. Two of his seven catches came against Illinois State
(12/8/12) in the FCS Playoffs, including a 1-yard TD grab. He also
had a non-scoring 40-yard reception against Washington State
(9/8/12) to set-up a second-quarter touchdown and knot the game at
14.

2011: Named to the Big Sky Conference
All-Academic team. He started Eastern’s first six games at
tight end, but missed four late-season games because of a shoulder
injury that required off-season surgery. All six of his receptions
came in EWU’s first five games, including a pair for 26 yards
versus Washington (9/3/11).

2010: Played in 13 games, including five as a
starter. His first career start came against Central Washington
(9/11/10), then he started three-straight games between Oct. 23 and
Nov. 13. His fifth start came against Villanova (12/17/10) in the
semifinals of the FCS Playoffs. He caught three passes for 123
yards (100th-most in school history) versus Portland State
(10/30/10), including a 70-yard touchdown pass from Nick Gauthier,
which ranked as the 39th-longest pass play in school history (now
42nd). Gehring also caught three passes versus Idaho State
(11/20/10). After a 63-yard run by Taiwan Jones on his first carry
of the game against North Dakota State (12/11/10) in the
quarterfinals, Gehring gathered in a 1-yard TD pass from Bo Levi
Mitchell.

2009: Redshirted. Was selected as the
team’s offensive scout team player of the week
once.

HS: Graduated from Castle Rock HS in 2009.
Selected to play in the 2A/1A/2B/1B East-West All-State Game. He
caught a team-high four passes for 91 yards in the West’s
31-13 victory. The son of a pair of former Eastern
student-athletes, he was the MVP of the 1A Trico League as a
senior. He was also the league’s Defensive Player of the Year
and was a first team All-Trico selection as a tight end. He had 125
tackles with six sacks on defense, and scored 17 touchdowns on
offense with 550 receiving yards and 250 rushing. Gehring helped
lead Castle Rock to a 10-2 record, including a 34-21 victory over
Orting in the first round of the State 1A Playoffs. Castle Rock
fell 35-12 to eventual 1A runner-up Cascade Christian in the
quarterfinals. As a junior, he earned first team All-Area honors as
a wide receiver from the Longview Daily News. He had 42
receptions for 631 yards and three touchdowns in 2007 and also
earned all-league honors as a sophomore receiver. He played
basketball as well, and as a junior earned first team All-Trico
honors and was MVP of the Seaside Holiday Classic. He also played
baseball as his Castle Rock teams appeared at the State 1A
tournaments in all three sports he competed in, including four
appearances in football.

Personal: Exercise science major. Born 10/23/90
in Longview, Wash. Will turn 23 three days before Eastern plays at
Montana. His father, Mark Gehring, was a backup tight end at
Eastern (1984-85) and went on to play in the NFL with San
Francisco, Minnesota, Washington and Houston (Oilers). His mother,
Kristy King (formerly Cristy Cochran when she played basketball at
EWU from 1983-86) was a first team All-Big Sky Conference selection
(Mountain West Conference at the time) in 1986. A 6-foot-1 post
player, Cochran had 706 rebounds to currently rank eighth in school
history. Zack’s brother Aaron was a tight end at Washington
State from 2006-10 after graduating from Castle Rock High School in
2006. Name is pronounced “gare-ing.”